News From Grinder’s Switch:
Interview With Minnie Pearl
A
%
Mrs. Sarah Ophelia Cannon came to
Charlotte three days ago.
A silver-haired lady with impeccable
manners, Mrs. Cannon. 70, arrived from
Tennessee wearing an executive red blazer,
a business-woman’s tie, and a conservative
blue skirt. Rut traveling with Mrs. Cannon
was another item of pttire: a flat straw hat
topped with 42-year-old flowers and a price
tag that reads $1.98.
Cousin Minnie Pearl was in town.
Mrs. Cannon has performed nationally
as Minnie Pearl since that Saturday night
in November, 1940, when “scared out of
my mind, ” she stepped up to the microphone
of WSM’s “Grand Ole Opry” radio program
and became the luckless, man-chasing
girl out of Grinder’s Switch. It worked. For
the past 42 years her personification of a
naive cr>untry girl consistently has remained
popular with audiences at the Opry, and in
1975 Minnie Pearl was inducted into the
Country Music Hall of Fame.
Last Monday, whenever Minnie Pearl was
mentioned, Mrs. Cannon laughed and re
ferred to her creation as “her, ’’ as if her
creation were a separate person for which
she wasn’t quite responsible. In Charlotte
to promote her autobiography, Mrs. Cannon
was. interviewed for the readers of The
Foothills View. She spoke as Minnie Pearl,
but behind the eyes was the intelligence
of Sarah Cannon, the thoughtful woman
from Centerville, Tenn., who has created
one of the stock characters of American
folk humor.
Cannon: You know whenever I see a
reporter, I think back to Hattisburg, Miss.,
and the time I was playing a Food-A-Rama
there in July. Lordy, it was hot! Well, Miss
America was there, too, and we left together,
me and my costume and all. Miss America
didn’t perspire at all, she “glowed,” as they
say. Well, I was glowing pretty much.
We were walking along — beauty and the
beast — and this newspaper fella took our
picture. Well, just for funning I told him
“You be sure and get the names right now,
so’s people can tell us apart,” and he said
back without the slightest trace of humor,
“Yes, Minnie Pearl on the left. Miss America
on the right.”
(Minnie Pearl, not Miss America, is pictured
left .The Editor.)
View: In 1975, when the old Grand Ole
Opry at Ryman Auditorium became Opryland
Amusement Park, you said Opry had become
an institution people see on their way to
Florida. Has Minnie Pearl become an
institution?
Cannon: The Grand Ole Opry was 57 years
old this past November, and I don’t think
that it can entertain people that long without
becoming an institution. Yes, I’ve been called
an institution, and I’ve felt very com
plimented by that.
View: Do you still enjoy your work after
all that time?
Cannon: Oh, yes. She, Minnie, is perpetually
amazed. That’s her secret. She’s so in
nocent . . . It’s a happy innocence, not a
tragic innocence. She’s never aged. That’s
why I love to go back to her. Minnie and
Grinder’s Switch, where my daddy used
to unload lumber, have become a never-
never land in my mind.
Please turn to Minnie Pearl, Page 3.
The Foothills View
Second Class Postage Paid In Boiling Springs, N. C. 29017
THURS., JAN. 7, 1982
See ft Your flTay”
$7.00 Per Year Single Copy 15 cents
Food For Thought
And College Credit
Proposed City Park:
It’s Up For Bids Again
Food, the substance ot life and a major
source of global concern today, is the
subject of the winter/spring 1982 Courses
by Newspaper program.
Publication of the provocative 15-part
series, “Food and People,’’ will begin
Jan. 14 in The Foothills View.
The illuminating weekly articles, written
by recognized authorities, examine the
role of food i,i terms of history, economics,
psychology, geoplitics, culture, morality,
and the future. Raising disturbing
questions and offering fresh perspectives,
the series presents an incisive view of the
world food situation.
The sixteenth in an ongoing series of
Courses by Newspaper programs that
began in 1973, “Food and People’’ will be
the basis of credit and non-credit courses
at participating colleges and univesities
across the country, including Gardner-
Webo College.
The winter/spring course is coordinated
by Dr. Dudley Kirk, who has been
Professor of Demography in Stanford
University’s Food Research Institute and
the Department of Sociology since 1967,
and the Dean and Virginia Morrison
Professor of Population Studies there since
1971. He served with the Department from
1947 to 1954, when he became Demogra
phic Director of the Population Council of
New York City, a post he held until 1967.
Readers who want to supplement their
knowledge gained through the series
articles can purchase a book of readings,
edited by Dudley Kirk, the “Food and
People’’ course coordinator, and Ellen
Eliason. The 200,000 word text provides
diverse opinions on food-related issues.
Besides the Reader,a Study Guide is also
available to those Who take companion
course for credit.
A Resource Guide has been prepared for
teachers and community organizations to
enliven discussion sessions and to simplify
planning programs based on the news
paper series. The comprehensive Guide
contains ideas for program formats,
speakers and panel topics, discussion
questions, anJ books to review.
All educational materials can be
purchased at college bookstores or by
mailing a coupon to be published in
Foothills View, along with the articles.
Courses by Newspaper, now entering
its tenth year, combines the resources of
the nation’s newspapers, colleges, and
universities in presenting topics of current
interest and importance to newspaper
readers and students at participating
colleges and universities.
The 1982 program is a project of
University Extension, University of Cali
fornia, San Diego, and is funded by the
National Endowment for the Humanities.
Area News
Dr. A. Mickey Church, Associate Superintendent of
the Cleveland County Schools has been elected Vice-
Chairman and Chairman-Elect of the Superintendent’s
Commission of the North Ca-olina Association of School
Administrators. Dr. Church, a charter member of the
state-'vide organization, was elected to this positions
at the December NC-ASA Conference held in Winston-
Salem.
Ttie objectives of the Superintendent’s Commission are
to provide a support system to communicate the needs
and concerns of the membjrship; to plan, develop, and
implement programs addressing the needs of the mem
bership; and to initiate and implement a continuous pro
gram of professional development for the membership.
The proposed city park is for bids again.
Town council took that action Tuesday
night after hearing architect Gardner
Gidley tell them that the cost of building a
new park may have risen as much as
$38,393 since the park was orginally bid in
1980. At that time low bids totaled
$228,607. Rising construction costs could
bring that total as high as $267,00 Gidley
told the council.
Boiling Springs has qualified for $87,500
in federal funds toward the cost of a park,
and the town has matched that amount for
a total of $175,000. That still left a deficit
of $92,000 between the money the town
has available and the current estimates of
costs.
That money was offered to the town last
month when John Searight, representing a
charitable fund established by local
athletes David Thompson and Artis
Gilmore, offered the council up to $92,000
in contributions provided the park be
named the Thompson-Giimore Park. At
that time council delayed action until
talking with Gidley. Searight was out of
town this week and unavailable for
comment on the council’s latest action this
Tuesday.
The decision to readvertise the bids
appeared to endanger council’s unanimi
ty ; ' on the town’s need for a park and
its location off Homestead Road. Council
man Max Hamrick criticized the amount
needed to be spent for an access road to
the Homestead location and the size of
such an appropriation for recreation.
“I haven’t got a closed mind,’’ Hamrick
said, “but it will take another vote.’’
Hamrick’s comment was sharply critici
zed by resident Tony Eastman, who
insisted council’s earlier appropriation was
binding. “I think we ought to build it,’’
Eastman said. “We’ve got that land, and
we ought to go ahead and do it.’’
Councilman John Washburn then moved
to advertise for new bids on a park “as
quickly as possible.’’ The motion carried
5-1 with Hamrick opposing. Mayor Jimmy
Greene then appointed Washburn to a
committee to study alternate sites for the
park, and invited Searight to the Feb. 2
council meeting.
In other action. Mayor Greene
commented on the town’s audit report:
“On the whole if s a good report and we’re
still in the black,’’ but Greene warned that
future capital expenses must come out of
town reserve funds;
arranged for a consulting firm to attend
the council’s next meeting to advise on
improving water quality;
set a special meeting jgp 12 to
open bids on two water mains extending to
Crest Acres development;
called a closed session ’’to discuss
personnel matters’’ and real estate
transactions. No action was taken.
Busy New Year
For Fire, Police
Boiling Springs Rural was the first
county fire department to answer a call in
the new year , as a chimney fire at a house
on Sandy Run-Mooresboro Road brought
out the department within the first 60
minutes of 1982 early morning January 1.
Damage there was minor.
Boiling Springs police also was busy New
Year’s morning. Officer James Clary
arrested a white male on West College at 3
a.m. for DUi and no operator’s license.
City fire enjoyed a quiet New Year’s
week with no calls reported.